The labourers in the vineyard
Matthew 20: 1-19
Jesus was a storyteller, getting us to think. He answered questions with questions. His stories were not straightforward, and it is possibly for this reason that the teachings of a Jewish peasant, talking two millennia ago about vineyards and mustard trees, can resonate today.
Imagine the scene, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem and the cross and people are eager to know more about the new realm he has been talking about. But Jesus doesn’t want to create dependency with a simplistic instruction, he wants to challenge, to leave behind a message which will provoke and endure. And that is certainly the case with what has come to be known as the parable of the labourers in the Vineyard, today’s reading from Matthew. It is yet another parable where our expectations are reversed and challenged (Crossan 2012).
The story is well known. We have some gig workers or day labourers who work for different periods of time, and yet all end up with the same pay.
So are you in the group which is amazed at the generosity of the landowner? We are all offered grace, however unworthy? And we can all partake in the wonders to be had in the realm of God.
Or are you in the group who wonder at the capriciousness of the landowner? The unfairness of it all that some sweated and toiled in 30° heat, while others milled around in the marketplace, possibly in the shade, yet all got paid the same. No wonder the people who worked the longest were inclined to give the landowner the evil eye.
We have two contrasting interpretations here – one emphasising generosity and Grace, one emphasising inequity and unfairness. The last verse – about the last shall be first and the first last – is probably an add on, so this neat pointer to one interpretation wasn’t there initially.
So, we would have yet another debate among the bystanders. What does this mean? Will the reign of God usher in a period when we are all equal, when the employer treats the gig worker the same as a regular employee? Or treats the employee almost as an equal where there is no expectation of a careful balancing of desert, and generosity abounds (Vearncombe 2010)? Where hierarchies are overturned? And is this really justice? Should not those who have toiled for longer deserve more in a just society?
Early interpreters saw meanings in the times originally translated as ‘at the third hour’ etc, with allegorical and, indeed, numerological interpretations (Tevel 1992).
The generosity of grace is a traditional allegorical interpretation and that works: we identify God with the owner, who is so generous, giving allegorical grace not just denarii, a God who gives life and gives it abundantly. God’s grace is unbounded, available to all equally, and we shouldn’t judge why that person was treated so generously, or that person warrants the same forgiveness as me. This is a safe interpretation, remote from the issues of today. Perhaps it also teaches that new Christians or parishioners are entitled to the same grace as well-established ones.
However, Jesus may also have been trying to stimulate us to think here about what is justice, what is fairness, what is equity? Who gets to decide what is just? It’s my money, says the landowner, like it, or lump it. But the landowner is indeed generous, ensuring everyone gets a living wage, regardless of how much work they were called to do. Was it their fault they were not selected in the first hiring? People with different orientations and emphases in how they think and feel will have different answers to how they Interpret this parable (Francis, Smith, and Astley 2022).
The parable was written a long time ago in a very different context. What is particularly important for us is what it means in our context. ‘Jesus' parables are all about shattering accepted social values, moral attitudes, common behaviours, religious practices and human prejudices’ (Hall 2003, 186), and this one is no exception.
Thinking about equity and debating what it means here and now in our society might be one place this parable takes us (Levine 2015). What does an equitable society look like, and how should we get there? There is a controversial but respectable argument that it is not just those who are poor that suffer worse health, but that societies which are more unequal have worse health outcomes for everyone: inequality itself is a health hazard (Wilkinson 1996, Wilkinson and Pickett 2010, Pickett and Wilkinson 2015). If this is a parable about inequality, and who gets a living wage, then it is no longer a safe parable, but one which shakes us out of our complacency, as Jesus is wont to do.
But let’s return to the generosity bit in a slightly different way. I’m here because it is Stewardship Sunday. Unfortunately, we have no generous landowner to give us money for the toiling we are doing in God’s vineyard. We have to raise what it costs to run the parish (after other income) ourselves.
The Wardens ask you in the handout today to think prayerfully and carefully about how you can help. We need you to step up. We now have two full-time stipended priests not one. That costs a lot more as we must pay for Mthr Kathryn’s stipend as well as Fr Michael’s. We all benefit from their presence and ministry, and we all should contribute. Parish Council is hopeful that their employment will be fully covered by our offerings.
Our wonderful music program brings joy to us all, especially those of us who attend 11 o’clock. For those of us who are taxpayers, we can make our donation go further by supporting a choral scholar through the Melbourne Anglican Cultural Organisation as a tax-deductible donation and I ask you to consider that too. Again, Parish Council is hopeful that we’d be able to cover all music costs by tax deductible donations.
St Peter’s is important to all of us and we ask you today to think about how you can ensure that our programs and ministries are able to thrive and expand. That takes money, of course, and that is why we are asking you to think about increasing your support. Can you be as generous as the owner of the vineyard was?
Stephen Duckett
Crossan, John Dominic. 2012. The power of parable: how fiction by Jesus became fiction about Jesus. New York: HarperOne.
Francis, Leslie, J., Greg Smith, and Jeff Astley. 2022. "Hiring labourers for the vineyard and making sense of God’s grace at work: An empirical investigation in hermeneutical theory and ordinary theology." HTS: Theological Studies 78 (4):a7444. doi: 10.4102/hts.v78i4.7444.
Hall, Gerard. 2003. "Jesus' Parables and Miracles." In Reading the Bible: An introduction for students, edited by Maurice James Ryan. Tuggerah, NSW: Social Science Press.
Levine, Amy-Jill. 2015. Short stories by Jesus: the enigmatic parables of a controversial rabbi. New York: HarperOne.
Pickett, Kate E., and Richard G. Wilkinson. 2015. "Income inequality and health: A causal review." Social Science & Medicine 128:316-326. doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2014.12.031.
Tevel, J. M. 1992. "The Labourers in the Vineyard: The Exegesis of Matthew 20,1-7 in the Early Church." Vigiliae Christianae 46 (4):356-380. doi: 10.2307/1583714.
Vearncombe, Erin. 2010. "Redistribution and Reciprocity: A Socio-Economic Interpretation of the Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard (Matthew 20.1-15)." Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus 8 (3):199-236. doi: https://doi.org/10.1163/174551911X571067.
Wilkinson, R. 1996. Unhealthy socieities: the afflictions of inequality. London: Routledge.
Wilkinson, Richard G., and Kate E. Pickett. 2010. The spirit level: why equality is better for everyone. London: Penguin.